To be worried about someone I don't even know

[Edlyu]

I take calls from people who claim benefits and help them navigate their way around benefits & understand the rules for claiming etc.

I dont process any benefits so can only signpost them to where their problem lies . Mostly my help is all that's needed but sometimes its beyond anything I can effectively do. Most days I have crying people trying to hold it together to describe their awful circumstances and often have to tell them that sadly there is nothing I can do and that there will be no money forthcoming for some time due to the processing of information etc. It makes me so annoyed that people with no experience of being on benefits blithely uphold what the government is doing based solely on whatever the daily mail chooses to portray.

But I do my job well and help where i can . I try to keep one step apart from the callers as I just cant take on so much sadness on top of my own day to day worries.

But.

I took a call yesterday that I cant get out of my mind. Its was from a man in his 50's who lived alone and had had his benefits stopped for not doing enough to seek work. He said it was a mistake on the part of the work trial provider who didnt give the information to him in a way the jobcentre could access. He spends his week looking for work in a supervised situation so this should all be documented by them.This is what they are paid to do.

For this offence he had a sanction placed on his benefit. This means he gets no money at all for the period of the sanction. In this case it is 4 weeks . That is NO money at all. So no food or any way of paying for heat. He is not allowed to get a crisis loan and has been refused a hardship payment. His housing benefit has stopped and he has no family in the area.

I tried to signpost him to foodbanks and the salvation army but he said he would rather die than be reduced to this. I offered to find contact details of his MP so he can try to get some help from him but he said he couldnt access a computer to do this .

This is a far as I could go on the phone but his beaten voice just haunts me . He wasnt crying -just downtrodden and without hope that he would have food or heat any time in the near future. He lives in a relatively affluent area near the south coast and I am so troubled that behind a clean and presentable front door someone is slowly starving and is very cold tonight .

Undoubtedly sanctions and disallowances are on the increase in DWP. They are getting tougher and asking questions after and not before the sanctions. This is political though it is coming from the top and is NOT civil servants being officious.. For all the hatred that civil servants get they are much caught in a trap as the customers they try and help.

Well said carben

Hi, I am a long time lurker and only occasional poster but your post made me really sad and I wanted to say that of course YANBU for worrying about this chap.

I feel like sending a link to this thread to the PM and Chancellor. We are most definitely NOT all in this together.

Sorry -Ive been away getting the gang home made pizza and chips. And as they were eating I watched them filling their faces realised that if I cant do something for all the poor people out there , I could attempt at least to do something for one man.

I will make strides to get something to his door at least. Does anyone know if a supermarket delivery will also carry a note?I have never used a delivery service as I make most of our food from scratch and am lucky enough to live in a small town with good enough shops.I was thinking along that lines of a brief - "from a friend" type of thing just to stop him from turning it away. Does anyone have experience of this sort of thing?

And yes ,it is a disgrace to treat all benefit claimants the same way. This man once ran his own business but has had some bad luck and illness and has come to this. I suppose that is why he is so loathe to contact the foodbank ( I dont even know if there is one in his area though).

It is a horrible thought that we are all only something like 3 wage packets from a similar fate.And there will be less and less help as time goes by.

I'm so glad you're planning to do something. It's really kind of you. I'd be sad and worried about him too.

I'm not sure if you can send a note with the online shopping orders but if not and as a last resort, how about sending a hamper (John lewis or similar) as you'd definitely be able to send a note then. It wouldn't really be the essentials he needs but crackers, cheese, cake etc. It's something.

I'm shocked that he's been left in such an awful position. You're so lovely to help!

Cruel, cruel England - what's our decency rating now? UUU?

if he is a proud man he might not accept the food - Maybe you could write to him about the foodbank and say that if he feels too embarrased then maybe he could volunteer for them so he felt as if he was giving something back?

That sort of thing would worry me too.

People have pride, and his pride will last a few days and he will find himself at a soup a kitchen, or at the Salvation Army place. No one will intentionally starve themselves.

I was quite shocked to find we have food banks near here. Really shocked. This is a reasonably affluent area at one end of town, with a proportion of social housing. Thing is, you cant just turn up and say you are hungry, you have to have a note from a healthcare professional, CAB or SS, and the police verify identity (again, shocked at that, I would have thought the police would have better things to do).

You can go to any supermarket and get a prepaid card, I think it's £10 minimum, and send it to him, he can spend it like a credit card on food, there is no need to spend it all at once either.

I think you are a lovely lady.

What about posting him a gift card for the grocery store near him, do they even do those? That way he can pick what he likes.
I like the idea of letting the foodbank know, maybe they will drop something round to him and encourage him to visit them.

Just wanted to add that what you are doing is wonderful. This man will not go hungry because of you.

Churches too. People think they might need to be converted or join the flock, they don't. Churches will help anyone in need

Edl I found your post very upseting and like you this would play on my mind.I'm so pleased it was you who took his call.I feel very guilty having thrown away food today.I wish stories like this made the national press to highlight and educate people about how difficult life is for some people.Frighteningly we could all very easily end up in this man's shoes, we never know what is around the corner and what life will throw at us.

Edlyu- thanks for caring.

Edlyu YANBU and I just wish there were more people around like you.
I think the idea of posting a pre-paid food shopping card to the man sounds great - perhaps it will see him through the next few weeks.
I truly despair of a system that allows people to go with money and therefore food and heating as a 'punishment' whilst handing out £1000's all over the place for politicians to fund and and furnish second homes.
Something is going terribly wrong and it's frightening. Will some people actually be happy when the 'benefit scroungers' are literally starving or freezing to death?

Please keep us updated OP, would love to know what you decide to do - here are some for being so lovely.

Soo sad :( would any other organisation be able to help? My Dad volunteers with citizens advice and I know they help many people in awful situations, but I guess they would direct him to a food bank too. He sounds like a decent guy who really wants to work and provide for himself. Bloody stupid, petty, red tape. Wish I could turn the tables on some of the system reformers. I swear some of them live on another planet.

It is so very kind of you to want to help this man and is much the same type of thing which I would have endeavoured to do when I was in a position to do so.

I have fallen on hard times recently through no fault of my own and have had to rely on a food bank to feed me and my four children. You're only allowed it three times and it covers three days at a time so nowhere near the four weeks sanction that the government issues so readily.

I am very lucky that I have family who cares very much and is seeing me and my children through this rough patch...my position is that tax credits have suspended my claim as they have "evidence" that exh lives here because he used my address for a bank account! I am fighting it and have seen my mp who quite frankly wasn't very positive as they said the tax credits are a law unto themselves! I have days where I believe that this just HAS to be rectified as I've told no lies and other days where I think that I'm going to end up in jail over this and what will happen to my children then?

It's a brutal world out there that you just simply cannot imagine until it happens to you.

It is absolutely disgusting that people are subjected to these sanctions. How can they stop payment for 4 weeks knowing that poor man will be starving and cold. What the hell is he supposed to do.

This country is the fucking pits.

You sound lovely, OP.

I second the idea of a supermarket gift card. He might refuse a supermarket delivery thinking it's not for him, they can't force him to take the stuff. But you can post him a gift card with no return address and he can't send it back or refuse it.

When they reinstate the money will it cover back pay for the missing 4 weeks?

I think a supermarket gift card is a great idea. But you should also try and find out about your whistleblowing policy. There needs to be an 'official' response to situations like this, or nothing will change.

I doubt it, kitbit

It is completely disgusting and unacceptable to leave someone in such dire circumstances. If they're not willing to give him money he should still be allocated some food vouchers. He has to eat FGS.

I'm so appalled by this story. We really need to send this thread to someone. But who? Who will listen?

Kitbit - no, it won't. So he will have 4 weeks worth of rent arrears to pay off, from just £71. He can't borrow money from anywhere as he will have no way of paying it back.

And the 'offence' he was sanctioned for wasn't even HIS fault, it was the fault of the 'work provider' that didn't provide the information in a format the Jobcentre could access.

This is NOT unusual. They have just dropped a 4-week sanction on my friend for not attending a work focused interview. Mostly because she was having her appendix removed at exactly the time of her appointment.

They won't bend on the sanction. She has three young DC's. She now has to try to recover from her op with no money for food, unless she doesn't pay her bills or feed her DC's properly. They have also stopped her HB. Her private rent is £200 a week. While me and her other friends can drop bits of food off for her, none of us have a pot to piss in way of helping her to pay her rent.

Her LL has said that if she misses even ONE weekly payment, then she will not renew her tenancy in April.

So because she needed an emergency appendectomy, she's going to be in rent arrears, her and her DC's will end up in a B&B (no private LL will rent to you if your reference from a previous LL states non-payment of rent as a reason for not renewing the tenancy), she will lose her deposit anyway and there's no deposit scheme in our LA, she will have made herself 'intentionally homeless' because of non-payment if rent WHICH ALSO MEANS THE COUNCIL WON'T HAVE A DUTY TO HOUSE HER OR HER DC's.

Because she missed ONE appointment because she was having her ducking appendix out!!

Ducking = fucking. My phone doesn't like me to swear too much.